Introduction It is important to monitor vascular access in patients with stage 5 chronic kidney disease receiving hemodialysis. Access recirculation can help to detect a need for intervention.
Objectives: To compare urea recirculation with recirculation by thermodilution using blood temperature monitoring to predict a need for intervention of vascular access over a 6-month period.
Methods: We analyzed urea recirculation and blood temperature monitoring simultaneously in 61 patients undergoing hemodialysis. During the 6-month follow-up, we recorded all cases of angioplasty or surgery (thrombectomy or reanastomosis). In line with previous studies, we considered a value to be positive when urea recirculation was >10% and blood temperature monitoring >15%. Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed.
Results: Mean urea recirculation was 9.5% ± 6.6% and mean blood temperature monitoring 12.9% ± 4.3% (p = 0.001). Urea recirculation >10% had a sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 78%. Blood temperature monitoring >15% had a sensitivity of 33% and specificity of 85%. During follow-up, 25% of patients developed need for intervention of vascular access. We found an association between vascular access dysfunction and urea recirculation. The Kaplan-Meier analysis confirmed an association between urea recirculation and risk of vascular access dysfunction (log rank = 17.2; p = 0.001). We were unable to confirm this association with blood temperature monitoring (log rank = 0.879; p = 0.656).
Conclusion: Urea recirculation is better predictor of vascular access dysfunction than thermodilution.
Keywords: Blood temperature monitoring; hemodialysis; recirculation; thermodilution; urea; vascular access.